


Be There

by enigmaticblue



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-18
Updated: 2012-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-03 21:17:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmaticblue/pseuds/enigmaticblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim keeps a promise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be There

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the sentinel_thurs challenge #432, "fan".

“Sandburg!”

 

Jim’s shout startles Blair, and he looks up from the article he’s reading. The last he’d checked, Jim had been sleeping. “What?”

 

“Why aren’t you dressed?” Jim asks as he pokes his head inside Blair’s door while knotting his tie. “We’re supposed to leave in five minutes.”

 

“I thought you were sleeping,” Blair replies, feeling like an idiot as soon as the words leave his mouth. Maybe Jim _had_ _been_ sleeping, but he’s clearly awake now. “And don’t you have another stakeout tonight?”

 

“Yeah, and you’re coming with me, but _after_ the dinner,” Jim says. “Shake a leg.”

 

Blair doesn’t immediately move. “I didn’t think you wanted to go.”

 

Jim rolls his eyes. “I said I’d go, didn’t I? You don’t win teaching awards everyday, and you don’t want to be late, so move!”

 

Blair moves, still trying to reconcile his earlier disappointment with the fact that Jim had apparently set an alarm with every intention of going to a boring faculty awards dinner when he could be sleeping—just because he said he’d go.

 

Considering that Jim’s been working 18-hour days for the last week, Blair knows what a sacrifice this is.

 

And if he’s honest with himself, Blair had expected Jim to find an excuse to avoid this.

 

“Chief! Come on!” Jim calls impatiently.

 

Blair manages to pull on a pair of slacks, a clean dress shirt, and a jacket, looping the tie around his neck. “Thanks for doing this, man.”

 

Jim shrugs. “Hey, I’m your biggest fan, remember?”

 

Blair has never told Jim about the numerous awards and scholarship banquets that Naomi—and her latest love interest—had missed. Naomi had never put much stock in rites of passage and rituals, which is probably why they’d always fascinated Blair.

 

He can still remember the day a couple of months ago that he’d opened a letter informing him that he’d won a teaching award, inviting him and up to two guests to the faculty banquet.

 

And he can remember the casual way Jim had said, “If you don’t have another date, I’ll be happy to go with you. I know it’s probably for family, but—”

 

“No, I’d like that,” Blair had said, because he’d wanted Jim to be there, because Jim is all about tradition and rituals and rites of passage. Jim is a fucking _rock_ , and if he says he’s going to do something, he’ll do it—or probably die trying.

 

So, when he’d come home this afternoon to find Jim snoring in the loft, Blair had pushed down the disappointment and reminded himself that Jim had been working long days _and_ nights, with another stakeout tonight, and he deserved a nap. Blair just wouldn’t go to the banquet; he’d claim he had the stomach flu or something.

 

And yet, here Blair is, feeling gauche and awkward in his tweed jacket next to Jim, in his dark suit and silk tie, and Jim just rolls his eyes. “Come here,” he orders gruffly, and begins to knot Blair’s tie with practiced hands, as if Blair doesn’t know how to do this himself.

 

He does, of course, but his stomach is twisting in a funny way, and there’s something that just feels good about having somebody look out for him, even if he’s been on his own for the last ten years.

 

Maybe _especially_ because he’d been on his own for so long.

 

“There you go,” Jim says, patting Blair on the chest. “I’m afraid I can’t improve your looks.”

 

“Oh, very funny,” Blair grumbles, but he knows Jim is teasing, and he doesn’t mind. That’s just what Jim does.

 

Jim slings an arm around Blair’s shoulders. “Let’s go, Sandburg. We’re going to be fashionably late as it is.”

 

“Hey, somebody has to _try_ to make you fashionable,” Blair replies reasonably, feeling a grin pull at his lips.

 

“I’m fashionable!” Jim protests, but he’s grinning, too. “I have a style all my own.”

 

“Keep telling yourself that,” Blair advises sagely, and then they’re both cracking up.

 

And Blair knows that everything in life is fleeting, but sometimes he wonders if he’ll manage to hang onto this, onto Jim. He wants to hang onto this friendship more than he’s wanted just about anything else in his life.

 

“Hey,” Jim says, suddenly sobering. “You deserve this.”

 

Blair swallows hard, suddenly realizing that Jim hadn’t been kidding. He really _is_ Blair’s biggest fan. “Thanks, Jim.”

 

Jim shrugs, and the moment is broken, but Blair is warmed from the inside out as he follows Jim downstairs.

 

Even if this doesn’t last, Blair will have tonight.


End file.
